The present disclosure relates to the rheology measurement of a fluid using ultrasound color flow imaging. More particularly, systems and methods may be provided that use ultrasound color flow imaging for monitoring fluid rheology in oilfield applications.
Rheology is the science of flow and deformation of matter and describes the interrelation between force, deformation and time. In simple flows, viscosity is a single parameter that links the rate of shear and the shear stress in the flow field. In industrial fluids, which are complex fluids, the viscosity cannot be represented in terms of a single parameter and becomes a function of the flow field. In a solid-liquid slurry, the local fluid viscosity not only depends on the local concentration of the solids but also on the local rate of shear and its gradient. Often, the solids being transported in the pipeline migrate away from pipe walls and into the core of the fluid flow within the pipe. As a result, rheology measurements of the fluid near the wall will yield erroneous results relative to the total flow cross section.
Rheological characterization of solid-liquid dispersions may commonly be performed using off-line measurement devices. For example, shear rheometers and extensional rheometers may be used to determine the rheological characterization of a solid-liquid dispersion. Using off-line measurement devices may have disadvantages to determining rheological characterization. A disadvantage may be that once a sample is withdrawn from a process stream, the rheological properties may begin to change. Often, the fluids to be measured may have rheologies that intimately depend on the flow field. This dependence is especially true for colloidal suspensions in which size and fractal dimensions of the clusters or aggregates depend strongly on the environment under which they exist. Many of these fluids exhibit shear-dependent viscosity, in the form of shear thinning or shear-thickening behavior, requiring determination of their viscosity at various shear-rates which may correspond to the range of shear rates observed in the flow field. Off-line measurements may hardly reproduce the same conditions which may exist in a real flow field such as shear induced migration of solid particles. This may make it difficult to obtain representative sample for off-line measurements of material in a pipeline that may not be homogeneous.
An alternative to off-line measurements may be the use of in-line systems and/or auxiliary systems which may monitor the rheology of a fluid passing through a pipe. Monitoring the rheology, in real-time, of a fluid within an in-line system and/or an auxiliary system may overcome the disadvantages found in off-line rheology measurements.